


Actions and Words

by sorbriquette



Series: Carry On Countdown 2018 [5]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: 5+1 Things, Carry On Countdown 2018, M/M, Minor Angst, Ways To Say I Love You, but this time it's not porn and it's done properly so yay!, general patheticness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17060108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorbriquette/pseuds/sorbriquette
Summary: Basically, five times they don't say 'I love you' and one time they do





	Actions and Words

**Author's Note:**

> titles r hard
> 
> Cheers to my betas for proofing this:  
> bpitchbitch.tumblr.com  
> esabettie.tumblr.com  
> nympahdcra.tumblr.com

**Simon - 1**

Baz had been displaying a tenderness I never really expected of him, regardless of the definition of our relationship.

It's been a trying few days. Killing the Mage, losing my magic, losing Ebb.

Really I thought he'd have up and left by now, told me to get over it and soldier on. He hasn't though, he hasn't really said anything and neither have I. I've just clung onto him and he's let me, he's more than let me.

He hasn't left my side since any of it went down, Merlin, I've spent more time with him that Penny.

I wrap my hands around his forearm when we're static and he places a hand over mine, running his fingers gently over the back of my hand. And he lets me grab his hand whenever we go anywhere and he holds it tightly so I know he won’t let go.

Of course, he can't be with me 24/7 but it's near enough.

Whenever he has to go somewhere, to get us food or to the bathroom or to call his father, he'll always tell me what he's doing. His voice is low and soft in my ear. Always calling me ‘love’ and never leaving for long.

He's the one reminder I have in all of this that sometimes when things change it's for the better.

So I don't let go and he doesn't try to make me.

**Baz - 2**

I was apprehensive at first when Snow invited me over for dinner in his new flat. I'm still apprehensive. But Snow was insistent. As stubborn as we both are, he's figured out that I can't really resist him if he pushes hard enough. So, I suppose now Snow and I are having dinner.

I don't bother knocking, it's far from my first time coming over, it's just the first time he's suggested it for the sole purpose of eating together.

"Hey," I say from the doorway, feeling uncomfortable and stupid for a moment but I don't want to seem particularly eager for this, because I'm not.

Snow glances up from where he's got a frypan on the stove, shooting me a dazzling smile, "hey."

"Smells good," I manage, because even if I don't like this, Snow's cooking for me and I think he's trying to be sweet so I don't want to be overly petulant.

"Thanks," he says, getting down two plates and dumping a rather large serving of some kind of pasta on each. He had previously expressed quite a bit of concern at the idea of me eating garlic but I'd assured him it was fine. Though that doesn't matter, I doubt I could have avoided this if I hadn't.

He hands me a plate and  leads me out of the kitchen.I can't quite help that hammering in my chest telling me that this could end everything between us. It's not like Snow hasn't seen my fangs. Crowley, it's not like he hasn't seen me eat before. But there's a difference between sharing a shepherd’s pie in a dimly lit room or eating a sandwich next to a grief-stricken Snow and  _ this _ .

But he leads me past the dining table and back over to the couch, plonking himself down, pasta shifting a little but not spilling out despite the portion size.

"Snow?" I ask, unsure quite how to phrase this question.

Snow looks up at me, fork already stuffing food in his mouth. He holds up a finger, finishing his mouthful. "I figured we'd have to work up to the whole, sitting across the dining room table, thing?"

I can practically feel myself melt at that, all of my insides suddenly becoming mush.

Snow almost looks concerned, likes he's made a mistake instead of my day.

I settle in beside him close enough that we're almost touching and his arm brushes mine slightly when he moves it. "Thank you, Simon," I murmur, leaning over to kiss his once again full cheek.

"Simon?" he says around another mouthful, obviously a little surprised, "are we being soft now?"

I roll my eyes but it does nothing to wipe the shit eating grin off Snow's face. "You started it."

He shrugs. "Figured we had to start somewhere. We can do the whole shebang, candlelit dinner, holding hands across the table and staring adoringly into each other’s eyes. I want to. Just, not until you're okay with it."

I watch him for a few moments, feeling more touched than I'd care to let on. Not wanting to open my mouth lest I ruin this.

Snow seems to gather my train of thought because he knocks his fork against my plate. "Eat. Before it gets cold."

**Simon - 3**

Baz waltzes into my flat like he owns the place, as usual. I've settled down on the kitchen table, spreading my textbooks out around me.

"Crowley, are you studying? Without Bunce?" he more mocks than asks, riffling the pages of one the book with a finger.

I look up and send him a withering look, "fuck off."

Baz raises an eyebrow, shitty smirk plastered across his face. "Fine, I'll go, shall I take these with me?" he lifts a hand and dangling from his fingers is a bag with what looks like box at the bottom.

"What's that?" I ask narrowing my eyes, wondering if this is just him trying to rile me up. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Nothing you want, apparently." He says it like he's about to leave but he doesn't move.

I sigh and roll my eyes, going to back attempting to work.

A small thump sounds and a bag crinkles as Baz takes out the white cardboard box. I think for a moment he's going to reveal a cake with something snarky written on it but when he opens the box it's filled with an array of different flavoured scones.

"They didn't have cherry, but they had just about everything else."

As I glance between Baz and the box of scones, I suppress the sudden and overwhelming urge to propose despite us having been together less than a year.

"What brought this on?" I ask not out of distrust for once, just shock, already getting up and fetching plates and butter.

"Do I need a reason?"

I shake my head and walk over to him, setting a plate down for both of us and stacking my textbooks to make space. "Thanks."

Baz's lip quirks slightly like it always does when he's resisting a smile. I fully intend to snog a proper one out of him. But after the scones.

Or perhaps not because he wraps an arm around my shoulder and presses a kiss to the top of my head. "I'll see you tomorrow, Fiona's been insisting I buy dinner tonight and stop leeching off her."

I snort, I can't help it. I've long since become accustomed to Baz's quoting voice but it still amuses me. "And what? You think this will keep me from doing the same?"

"Yes, you've uncovered my plot, Snow." His voice is practically dripping with sarcasm. "I suppose I'll just have to buy you dinner on Thursday. You know, like I do every week."

I shrug his arm off my shoulder and place a hand either side of his face, tilting his head down so I can kiss him slowly. His arms encircle my waist this time and I can practically feel his edges soften under my hands. When I pull away from him, his eyes open slowly but not fully and he doesn't let go of me.

Apparently, that starts something of a tradition between us. Baz brings me scones a couple of times a week. He insists it's just because I snog the life out of him every time I do but Penny thinks it's just because he wants to make me happy. Usually, I'd think Baz only had the worst of intentions but half the time he just drops them off, pecks me on the cheek and set back off to Fiona's or something.

So maybe he is just being sweet. Though sweet and Baz are two words I'd rarely put together, the evidence is stacked against him. But I don't bring it up, because I'm not sure what I'd do if he flat out denied it.

**Baz - 4**

"I'll see you later," I say, leaning down to kiss Simon's forehead as I make for the door.

He catches my wrist, "where are you going?"

"Back to Fiona's?"

Surely, he's figured out by now that I live there.

Snow shakes his head and pulls me in the opposite direction from to door. I don't move, either towards or away from it.

"Like fuck you are, it's blowing a gale out there," he gestures to the window being pelted with rain as he speaks.

"I know," I, in turn, gesture to my wet clothes, "now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go home and put on something warm and dry."

He stares at me for several long moments, using the stare I usually give him when he's being daft, "Borrow some of mine, you dolt. I'm not letting you go back out there."

I do want to stay but I've never been one to back down from a challenge like that, "you think you could stop me?"

"I think I'm asking you to stay."

And just like that, I relent, "fine."

"See, easy, stopped you in your tracks," he adds and I consider storming out just to make a point. He's still got his hand around my wrist though and he tugs me back into the centre of the room, this time I come willingly. "Though I'm well aware I couldn't stop you if you really wanted to go." Somehow those words just feel like he's pouring salt on an open wound.

So, I glare at him, even as I let him push me into his room, right up until he closes the door behind me, to give me some semblance of privacy or merely to break my gaze I'm not sure.

I rifle through his things and find the least horrible thing I can, taking a pair of trackies and a shirt that’s  too big for both me and him (but that he wears anyway) into the bathroom to strip out of my sopping clothes and shower before changing. I don't have any of my products here so it's a relatively quick process.

Snow comments as much when I emerge from his room, dressed in his clothes, drying my hair with his towel.

"That must be a new record," he mutters from where he's splayed out across the couch, curling his legs up so I can sit on the end of it.

I ignore him in favour of taking my own jabs, "I'm going to have to take you shopping again."

He looks over at me and frowns, reaching across to tug at my (his) shirt apparently unaware that, as loosely as it hangs on me, it does near as much for him. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

"What isn't?" I ask and he glowers at me. "For starters, you've only filled half your drawers, we can use the rest to expand in a better direction."

And now he's looking at me like I'm an idiot.  _ Again. _ Apparently, we've accomplished a real role reversal here today.

"Those are for you," he says after several long moments of deafening silence.

"What?"

"Those last two drawers are for you, so you don't have to keep bringing clothes over all the time. So, you don't bitch about my wardrobe when you skulk in looking like a drowned cat."

I blink at him, still not quite managing to process what he’s saying, he must take this as confusion because he presses on.

"I told you months ago; 'leave your stuff in my room', 'make yourself at home', 'when are you going to start paying rent?'" he lists off like he hasn't just single handedly doubled my lifespan, "Merlin, and you say  _ I'm  _ dense."

"Simon," I hesitate a moment, unsure what to say.

But apparently, it's enough, his first name usually is, whether I mean to say it or not. His expression softens from one of exasperation tinted amusement to something downright smitten.

"Hey, I mean it. Do what you want, put pictures up, keep your stupid fancy products in the bathroom, stash some books in a bedside table. Like at Watford, except you don't have a side of the room so I'm allowed wherever I want."

"Are you sure?"

Snow rolls his eyes and sits up properly, crawling across the couch to me and draping both his arms over my shoulders and planting his knees either side of my hips. "Have been for months."

He's close and I hate it because I can't stop smiling but I don't have it in me to push him away. So I wrap my arms around his middle and pull him closer.

"Really though, Penny says if you stay more than three nights in a row you need to start paying rent."

I can't help but laugh but I only get so far before Snow's mouth is on mine and he's shutting me up.

**Simon -5**

"Is this a power thing, Snow?" Baz asks, straightening up and tearing his lips from mine far sooner than I’d have liked.

"What?" I ask, frowning up at him over those three inches.

He gestures between us, " _ this _ . You want to snog me but you refuse to actually do anything about it."

"Fuck off," I protest, "I am snogging you."

"No, you're not."

"Well, not right now because you're all the way up there."

"Exactly," he says like that holds some semblance of sense here. "You could reach me if you'd just try." His hand moves to the back of his own neck, fingers drumming gently over the hand I have settled there. "It's awful bad for my neck to be leaning down all the time."

I roll my eyes and take my hand back from him. "We can sit down and snog if you want."

"So, it is a power thing?"

"What?"

"You refusing to lean up."

I frown at him for a few moments, trying to figure out what exactly it is he's getting at. Or, I do  _ know _ , kind of. It's not really something I think about often.

"It's not a power thing." I suppose it might be with him though. I wouldn't be surprised.

"Then what is it?"

I hesitate a moment but brush any apprehensions aside in favour of winning. "Nothing," I murmur, pressing up onto my toes to kiss him.

He does kiss me, if only for a moment. Then there's a hand on my shoulder slowly pushing me back down. "Really Snow, what is it?"

I shrug, I can't help it. "I don't know, it just always seemed like another way you beat me. Something else you were better at."

"So it is a power thing?"

"No," I basically groan. "It's like- I don't know- I."

I grab at a handful of my hair. But Baz is still right in front of me and he puts his hand over mine, gently pulling my fingers from my head to them in his own.

"It's just, I finally had something, you know? Didn't feel like some useless orphan for once but no matter what I did you were always better. You were good at magic, my own girlfriend liked you more than me and every time I grew, you grew more." I just shrug, because I'm not really sure what to say, not sure what could possibly follow that.

"Snow, you were the Greatest Mage. The actual, prophesied, most powerful mage ever." He tells me like I didn't already know that like people hadn't been telling me that for eight years of my life. "And Wellbelove didn't  _ really  _ want me. She just didn't want you."

"Get fucked," Agatha isn't really a sore spot anymore. She hasn't been for a long time. Something about that callous dismissiveness though irks me. "Look, I'm not jealous, not really, I just-"

I don't know what 'i just' thought. I've never been good at these things. Not thinking about things is much easier, particularly when I don't really understand them myself.

I consider maybe telling him that I do really just want him, that I don't want to  _ be  _ him. And that I know things haven't been as simple or as easy for him as I make it sound. I'm just not sure how to say it.

As it happens though, I don't have to say anything.

Baz lets go of my hand and I almost think he was about to push me away if he didn't pick me up before I have time to protest.

I throw my hands over his shoulders to steady myself, though I'm not sure that's necessary, even though Baz's arms are tucked under my legs he has a pretty stable grip on me.

"Happy?" he asks in a low voice as I cross my ankles behind his back, putting me even more firmly in place.

I almost tell him it's not the same, that it's fleeting and meaningless. I suppose it's not really though.

He's got that look on his face like he's just doing it to shut me up. But he's the one who pushed to talk about this. And there's something soft lurking in his features that he doesn't want me to see. And he just picked me up so I'd be taller than him even though I told him being shorter always made me feel lesser.

So, I lean into him until my upper arms are resting firmly on his shoulder and his face is close enough that I can make out the blue and green in his eyes. He meets my gaze, looking up at me for once.

After several long moments of just looking at each other, he speaks up, "You know you are going to have to lean down this time, right? If I get on my toes you go up too."

"What?" I ask, one of my hands tracing fingers gently up and down his spine, "I'm not allowed to look at you when you're being soft now?"

"I'm not-" he starts, but he knows as well as I do that he  _ is _ .

So, I cut him off with my mouth and he seems more than happy with that answer.

**Baz +1**

Snow practically leaps into my arms when I walk through the door of his flat.

I drop the bag I'm holding to catch him but he doesn't even seem to notice.

"Here, try this," he says, shoving a piece of  _ something  _ into my mouth when I part my lips to kiss him.

I can't help but be a little put out, even more so when I actually taste it. Apparently, Snow's expecting it because when I drop him he lands on his feet.

"How is it?" he asks, turning around and waltzing back towards the kitchen.

I force myself to swallow it down because I wasn't raised with a complete lack of manners. "Salty."

Snow nods, "yeah, thought so, I accidentally put salt in the muffins instead of sugar."

"And then you forced me to eat them?" I scoop up the dropped bag and almost consider walking out with it. Snow has long since realised what's in it is scones though, and he'd never forgive me if I left with them.

He shrugs, rushing back to me with a glass full of water. "I thought I'd get a second opinion. I tried like four of them to be sure myself."

I gulp down the water to wash away the lingering and overpowering taste of salt before replying. "You're such an idiot."

Snow laughs, turning back to the stove and picking up a tray of muffins which he promptly deposits in the bin. "Love you too, arsehole."

I stop a moment, freezing in place while Snow continues to go about his business. He doesn't even seem to notice the effect he's had on me until I speak up.

"You do?" I sputter more than speak.

Snow looks up, a frown gracing his features as he mentally retraces the conversation to try and figure out what I mean.

I don't know what I expected from him. Maybe that he'd shrink in on himself, take a step back and deny it. That he'd tell me it was just a phrase or that he wanted me to get out.

But he doesn't even hesitate, he just shrugs and says, "well, yeah. I thought it was obvious."

And I can't even pretend to know what to do with that. I examine him, looking for a moment to see if he's about to back down but I know he won't. It's then that I notice he's wearing my jumper. One I tossed in the washing basket last night that's he's obviously fished out to put on. I should be annoyed he literally went through my dirty laundry. I can't though.

Maybe I've been quiet for too long because now Snow looks hesitant, "Do- do you?"

"Love you?" I ask even though I know it's what he means. And the answer, I know that too, I have for years.

He nods slowly but doesn't speak.

"Yeah," I say, enjoying the moment I get to see relief and tenderness wash over his face. "Yeah, I do. I have for a very long time."

Simon steps forward a little into my space, hands falling onto my shoulders then slowly making their way down my arms till they clasp in mine. "You should have said something," Snow says, his bottom lip between his teeth and his lips pulling up at the corners. I only have a moment to enjoy that sight before he leans up and kisses me. I'm glad he does. I'm not sure I could move of my own accord right now. But I respond to his touch, my hands squeezing his, my lips parting to welcome his.

"You'd have broken my heart and my face in no particular order if I had," I tell him when he moves away and I gain control of my body back.

Snow rolls his eyes leaning into me and releasing my hands to wrap his arms around my waist. "Don't be dramatic, I wouldn't have."

"Fifth year?" I say it like I'm trying to win this argument (if it can even be called that) but it's more an admission than anything.

He looks a little surprised at that. "Okay yeah maybe, but we've been together for over a year now."

"I didn't think you felt the same,"

Snow raises an eyebrow at me. I'd hate that he's picked that up if it weren't so adorable. "You're an idiot."

My lips would have pulled into a smile if I had been half as successful at holding them off around Snow as I used to be. I'm pretty sure I've been smiling for the past few minutes. So much that my mouth is beginning to hurt. So, I lean down and kiss him the hopes of washing it away, murmuring a soft, "I love you too," against his lips.


End file.
